Publications

2024
Working Paper

Cephalosporins—Fighting Hospital Infections: Case Histories of Transformational Advances

By: Amar Bhidé, Srikant Datar and Katherine Stebbins

This case history describes the development of three generations of cephalosporins – antibiotics that have significantly reduced hospital infections. Specifically, we chronicle how: 1) Early (pre-cephalosporin) antibiotics were developed in the first half of the 20th... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Technology Adoption; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Invention; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

SSRN

Research Summary

Overview

Pushing decision authority downward and increasing employee autonomy have become watchwords for the modern organization. Leaders of contemporary organizations view efforts to replace “command and control” systems with less-hierarchical approaches to organizing as... View Details

Keywords: Formalization; Teams; Decentralization; Hierarchy; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Self-managing Organizations; Future Of Work; Flat Organization

01 Jun 2024
News

Decoding the Promise and Perils of Generative AI

ChatGPT burst into the public consciousness on November 30, 2022. Within two months, the generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) software, which leverages a large language model (LLM) to produce human-like, text-based conversations, had reached an estimated 100... View Details

Keywords: April White

2014
Working Paper

The Unfairness Trap: A Key Missing Factor in the Economic Theory of Discrimination

By: Jordan I. Siegel, Naomi Kodama and Hanna Halaburda

Prior evidence linking increased female representation in management to corporate performance has been surprisingly mixed, due in part to data limitations and methodological difficulties, and possibly to omission of a fairness factor in the economic theory of... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Fairness; Performance Productivity; Gender; Japan

SSRN

27 Nov 2017
Research & Ideas

Beware the Lasting Impression of a 'Temporary' Selfie

live shots on big screens across campus. Knowing that the selfie would be temporary made people 1.2 times more likely to take and share a selfie than those in a control group, the researchers found. The promise View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

2024
Working Paper

Laparoscopy—Minimally Invasive Surgery: Case Histories of Transformational Advances

By: Amar Bhidé, Caitlin N. Bowler and Srikant M. Datar

We describe how operations through laparoscopes – tubular instruments inserted into abdominal cavities – revolutionized gynecological and other surgeries inside the abdomen, such as gall bladder removal. Specifically, we chronicle the 1) foundational contributions of... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Technology Adoption; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Invention; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

SSRN

2013
Working Paper

Managing Firms in an Emerging Economy: Evidence from the Time Use of Indian CEOs

By: Raffaella Sadun

The success or failure of a company is often ascribed to the behavior of its CEO. Yet little is known about what top managers actually do, whether this matters for firm performance, and why it differs across firms. We provide some answers by developing a new survey... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Performance; Outcome or Result; Management Teams; Manufacturing Industry; India

January 2017
Article

Should You Sleep on It? The Effects of Overnight Sleep on Subjective Preference-based Choice

By: Uma R. Karmarkar, Baba Shiv and Rebecca M.C. Spencer

Conventional wisdom and studies of unconscious processing suggest that sleeping on a choice may improve decision-making. Though sleep has been shown to benefit several cognitive tasks, including problem solving, its impact on everyday choices remains unclear. Here we... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Choice; Sleep; Choice Sets; Confidence; Consumer Psychology; Consumer Preferences; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior

Find at Harvard

January–February 2024
Article

Shared Service Delivery Can Increase Client Engagement: A Study of Shared Medical Appointments

By: Ryan W. Buell, Kamalini Ramdas, Nazlı Sönmez, Kavitha Srinivasan and Rengaraj Venkatesh

Problem Definition: Clients and service providers alike often consider one-on-one service delivery to be ideal, assuming – perhaps unquestioningly – that devoting individualized attention best improves client outcomes. In contrast, in shared service delivery, clients... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Customer Satisfaction; Outcome or Result; Performance Improvement

Find at Harvard

2012
Working Paper

Learning by Supplying

By: Juan Alcacer and Joanne Oxley

Learning processes lie at the heart of our understanding of how firms build capabilities to generate and sustain competitive advantage: learning by doing, learning by exporting, learning from competitors, users, and alliance partners. In this paper we focus attention... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Supply Chain; Competitive Advantage; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Competency and Skills; Relationships; Telecommunications Industry

Learning processes lie at the heart of our understanding of how firms build capabilities to generate and sustain competitive advantage: learning by doing, learning by exporting, learning from competitors, users, and alliance partners. In this paper we focus attention... View Details

2023
Working Paper

Estimating Productivity in the Presence of Spillovers: Firm-Level Evidence from the U.S. Production Network

By: Ebehi Iyoha

This paper examines the extent to which productivity gains are transmitted across U.S. firms through buyer-supplier relationships. Many empirical studies measure firm-to-firm spillovers using firm-level productivity estimates derived from control function approaches.... View Details

Keywords: Supply and Industry; Partners and Partnerships; Production

08 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

Women’s Summit Celebrates ‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuit’

because they fear they're shortchanging their children for the sake of career advancement. But that attitude can be self-defeating, leading women to hold themselves back from promotions or drop out of the... View Details

Keywords: by Katie Koch & Harvard Gazette

1992
Chapter

The Hubris of Regulated Competition in Airlines

By: R. H.K. Vietor

Keywords: Air Transportation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Air Transportation Industry

04 Feb 2015
What Do You Think?

Is There a Stanford-Google-Silicon Valley School of Management?

"Time and size will see to it that the 'structure' takes control Fluctuation (innovation?) happens more at the fringes and the 'creative' parts of the company, less within the structure. And this is... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Education

October 2015
Article

Managing the Performance Tradeoffs from Partner Integration: Implications of Contract Choice in R&D Projects

By: Alan MacCormack and Anant Mishra

Formal contracts represent an important governance instrument with which firms exercise control of and compensate partners in R&D projects. The specific type of contract used, however, can vary significantly across projects. In some, firms govern partnering... View Details

Keywords: ＂＂Partner Integration; Contract Choice; R＆D Project Management; Relational Contracts; Partnering Performance; Research and Development; Projects; Partners and Partnerships; Performance; Contracts

Find at Harvard

2009
Working Paper

Watch What I Do, Not What I Say: The Unintended Consequences of the Homeland Investment Act

By: Dhammika Dharmapala, C. Fritz Foley and Kristin J. Forbes

This paper analyzes the impact on firm behavior of the Homeland Investment Act of 2004, which provided a one-time tax holiday for the repatriation of foreign earnings by U.S. multinationals. The analysis controls for endogeneity and omitted variable bias by using... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Multinational Firms and Management; Government Legislation; Taxation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Behavior; United States